Major Initiatives

NJVid Project

NJVid is a statewide digital video portal and central storage repository that provides a common online platform for presentation, storage and archiving of digital works (e.g. digital video) that educate and enlighten viewers in support of online teaching and learning. NJVid accomodates three overall collection of videos: locally-owned videos that can be viewed and shared by all, commercially-licensed videos, and noncommercial videos to which institutions provide members-only access. VALE consortium is a partner on the project and its membership elected the Films Media Group (FMG) video collection to be NJVid's premiere commercial video collection.

For a number of years a VALE Open Library Systems (VALID) team has been working on a new vision for the VALE consortium, one in which New Jersey academic libraries would, where possible, unify policies, collaborate in their operations, and work to provide a sum greater than their parts. Part of this vision is the adoption of a shared, open-source, library system that will allow us to coordinate and support online services delivered at the network level yet decrease our reliance on commercial system vendors. Since 2007 VALE members have evaluated several open-source library products, including Evergreen and Koha, and determined that the efforts and potential of OLE are most aligned with this vision for VALE’s future.

VALE OLE Project

Since 2007 VALE members have evaluated other library open-source products, such as Evergreen and Koha, and determined that the efforts and potential of Open Library Environment are most aligned with this vision for VALE’s future. The goal of the Open Library Environment Project (OLE), is to define a next-generation technology environment based on a thoroughly re-examined model of library operations and connected to other enterprise technology systems.

VALE OLS Project

In 2007 a study team was charged with taking a look at the PINES implementation, examining a test installation, and producing a white pager/feasibility study for a similiar implementation of a shared ILS, bibliographic and patron database by VALE libraries.